BY DANIEL GEIGER

There was a time when it seemed certain 11 Times Square would command some of the highest rents in city.

The building, which was developed by a venture between SJP Properties and its equity partner Prudential, was finished in 2010. As one of the newest buildings in Midtown, it is widely considered state-of-the-art, with many of the bells and whistles that tenants are supposed to be willing to pay a premium for, such as towering ceiling heights, LEED-certified efficient systems, a floor-to-ceiling glass façade that offers prodigious light and few structural columns to impede the efficiency of its spaces.

Entering the market at a tough juncture during the recession, SJP Properties nonetheless appeared to take a hard line on rents, and rightfully so: the building cost more than $1 billion to develop. According to several sources familiar with the property and its leasing history, the landlord held fast to projections it had set before the downturn—rents in the $80s per square foot and beyond.

But SJP and Prudential have since appeared to dramatically change tack. Increasingly wary of the vacancy that has lingered at the roughly 1-million-square-foot tower, the partnership is in the process of arranging a nearly 400,000-square-foot deal with the software and technology giant Microsoft. The lease, rumors of which have been circulating in the city’s real estate industry for weeks, is said to be for rents around $60 per square foot, which many leasing experts have called a sizeable discount from what the building owners were originally seeking.

Factoring heavily in the apparent bargain are rich incentives SJP is said to be offering on top of the low rental rate.

“The talk is rents in the $60s per square foot, with around $100 per square foot in work and free rent for at least a year, maybe longer,” Joseph Harbert, president of Colliers International’s eastern region, told The Commercial Observer. “It’s a very aggressive deal. It has been an asset that has taken a long time to rent. They clearly reached for this tenant.”

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BY DANIEL EDWARD ROSEN

By the end of 2011, it had appeared to David Ash that Prince Realty Advisors, his fledgling startup, was on the cusp of going bust.

The 31-year-old entrepreneur had seen five of his deals—a mix of office buildings and development sites that, if closed, would have been valued in the millions—go from near-closure to sudden death.

Slow business had already forced him to live off of a family loan that would allow him to stay in his Upper East Side apartment and eat for another six months. But that loan was running out quickly.

The outlook was bleak enough for him to try to drum up new business while simultaneously interviewing at Cushman & Wakefield, Jones Lang LaSalle, and Eastdil Secured for possible jobs as a broker. As each deal collapsed, so too did his hopes for his company’s future.

“I’m a positive guy in general, but when you go through what I went through, it’s not so easy to be positive,” said Mr. Ash.

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BY CARL GAINES

The list of luxury retailers jockeying for space in Lower Manhattan the past several years, particularly along Wall Street, has been impossible to miss. The same holds true for investment in residential in the area, with Rose Associates taking on the former AIG headquarters at 70 Pine Street, 8 Spruce Street standing tall and the upper floors of the Woolworth Building even potentially on the verge of being transformed into luxury condos. All signs point to retail having a moment. Sensing the trend three and a half years ago, a team from Cushman & Wakefield installed itself in the middle of it all. Senior Directors Michael Stone and David Tricarico and Senior Associate Carl Wunderlich spoke to The Commercial Observer last week from their office at 100 Wall Street.

The Commercial Observer: Can you tell me a little bit about the retail team here? Mr. Stone: We’ve been with Cushman & Wakefield a little over seven years, our team. About three and a half years ago, we were asked if we wanted to come down to the Wall Street office and establish a retail presence in our Lower Manhattan office. We have a strong office leasing component down here, and they’ve traditionally, for the past 40 or 50 years, dominated office leasing in Lower Manhattan, and we thought, based upon the fact that high-end retail deals were starting to get done on Wall Street and Broad Street, that it was a good idea for one of the big firms—and ours especially—to move a team down here. So we decided, because our practice area is really throughout the city, and we need some mobility and flexibility, that it was a good idea to assist the company in expanding retail.

How often do you have to go back and forth to headquarters? Mr. Stone: We have meetings in Midtown all the time, both for clients off site and with our colleagues in headquarters. We look at this as an opportunity to service our office brokers who represent agencies down here and may need our assistance in valuing the retail component of an office building they represent—we’ve done that in a number of buildings, and we’ve actually completed transactions as a result of that. But also it’s an expansion of our current practice, which is Midtown, Soho—throughout the city, and Lower Manhattan’s just another CBD in the city. I think I speak for all of us—it’s been an enjoyable move for us.

You mentioned that the idea came to move down here as some high-end retail stores were opening. What were some of those at the time? Mr. Stone: You can see Tiffany’s on Wall Street and Canali on Broad Street and Hermès on Broad Street. There is an expansion of retail globally into markets, and the Financial District is a huge market for some of these retailers. There’s an emerging residential component down here. Obviously the office market is strong and continues to be strong, and I think retailers recognize that Lower Manhattan is someplace that they need to be.

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BY CARL GAINES

A little over three months after Enterprise Community Investment’s mortgage finance business merged with Bellwether Real Estate Capital, the new entity is speeding along toward its projected 2012 $1.5 billion in mortgage production volume.

The new company, Bellwether Enterprise Real Estate Capital, has originated more than $421 million in financing since it formed on May 31, 2012. At the time, its CEO, Lamar Seats, said that the two companies overlapped very little. He added that its New York area focus would be on the affordable housing market.

Ned Huffman, president of Bellwether Enterprise Real Estate Capital, told The Mortgage Observer recently that the merger is going according to plan.

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The November issue of The Mortgage Observer will feature the 20 most promising commercial mortgage brokers under 35 throughout the tristate area--but we need your help determining the best and brightest.

Whether it's thanks to financing volume or the complexity of the assignments they're given, we want to know who's racking up accolades in the mortgage industry, and we want your nominees for New York's next generation of mortgage brokers.

The due date for nominations is October 8, 2012. Those selected will be featured in our November issue. Include titles and company names for all submissions and include a little bit about why you think they deserve to be featured. Nominate yourself, a colleague, a friend or your son and daughter. Doesn't matter to us, just send your submissions by October 8.

Send nominations to topmortgagebrokers@observer.com. All emails will be kept strictly confidential.